Design Information

Typeface Designer: Clovis ValloisYear of development: 2010–11

In 2010 Clovis Vallois started to design the ERNESTO typeface for the corporate identity of the regionally renowned cultural place EWERK Freiburg located in the south of Germany. The new typeface should combine the following features: it had to give the appearance of a link to the site, to the architecture and should consider the people who enlive that place. Starting from the front facade of the building structure, the four-part roof of the building is formative. However, the design has to be confined to one formative element of the roof in search of clarity and conciseness. The descision felt on the diagonal slopes on the right side of the roof. The diagonal of the architecture in the logo and the typeface embodies the dynamics of the house but also the little "slant" and inappropriate character of this place. The EWERK is a place of diversity and variety, by the people who operate there, but also by the different arts which are combined in this house. This diversity is pointed out through the three different weights of the logo and the typeface. The building was built around 1900 at this time the sans serif typefaces made their appearance. Among others, the Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk of 1896 and the Futura by Paul Renner in 1927 were created in this time. These two typefaces embodies perhaps best the spirit of the construction of the building. The geometrization and construction were the most important themes of this time in all different art related disciplines. For this reason he decided to design a sans serif font for the EWERK, the ERNESTO. The ERNESTO typeface combines the grotesque and the geometrization of the past times to the modern times. ERNESTO adopts the diagonal slant of the architecture in some letters of the alphabet. The logo is adapted to the three font weights. Two additional stilistic alternates as open type features were integrated afterwards.